From open to closed societies: Inequality, migration, and women's rights
研究意大利三百多个社区六百年间公共资源治理的制度变迁，发现富裕社区因资源不平等面临移民压力，通过排除女性成员资格来限制移民，这种封闭通过多米诺效应扩散并持续，直到拿破仑改革恢复平等准入。
We study six centuries of institutional change in the governance of the commons across over three hundred Italian communities. Wealthier communities, facing migration pressure due to unequal resource endowments, restricted access to common property resources by excluding women from membership, thereby limiting migration through marriage. Using archival data and an agent-based model, we show that this endogenous closure spread via a domino effect and persisted until a centralized Napoleonic reform reinstated egalitarian access. The findings highlight how migration, inequality, and gendered institutions interact in polycentric systems, offering broader insights for the political economy of property rights on land and institutional reform in developing contexts. • We trace six centuries of institutional change in hundreds of community commons in Italy. • Inequality and migration pressures drove decentralized choices to close communities. • Network externalities shaped the propagation and persistence of institutional change. • Agent-based model replicates the empirical patterns of closure, domino effect, and lock-in. • Centralized reform was necessary to restore openness to communities.